OpenAI's financial outlook, as described in internal projections reviewed by The Information, points to a company pursuing enormous scale while accepting extraordinary near-term pressure. The documents show a business aiming for $100 billion in revenue by 2029, a 100-fold increase from 2023, while not expecting to turn a profit until 2029.
For OpenAI investors, the opportunity and the risk are tightly linked. The same strategy that could make the company a central platform for AI work also requires massive spending, rising personnel costs, and continued reliance on partners like Microsoft.
A Revenue Target Built Around Rapid Expansion
The headline ambition is clear: OpenAI wants to grow revenue to $100 billion by 2029. That target would represent a dramatic jump from 2023 and suggests the company expects demand for its AI products to keep expanding across consumer, developer, and workplace use cases.
But the projections also show how expensive that growth could be. OpenAI does not expect to become profitable until 2029. Losses could triple to $14 billion by 2026, not counting stock-based compensation, according to The Information's analysis of data contained in OpenAI financial documents.
The company also expects to lose $44 billion between 2023 and 2028. In the first half of 2024, OpenAI burned through $340 million, leaving it with $1 billion in cash before its latest funding round.
That creates a central tension for investors. OpenAI is not presenting a low-cost software growth story. It is presenting a scale story in which large losses are part of the path toward much larger revenue.
AI Infrastructure Is the Main Cost Pressure
The biggest spending category is the core technical work behind AI models. Model training and operation are expected to consume 60-80% of spending. OpenAI anticipates $10 billion in training costs alone for 2026, along with $5 billion for research.
Those numbers help explain why OpenAI's financial profile differs from many cloud software startups. Its gross margin is 41%, well below the 65%+ industry average for cloud software startups. The company aims to lift that margin to 67% by 2028.
The documents leave some computing costs unclear. Microsoft appears to be offsetting some cloud costs against investments through credits. OpenAI is also planning investments in data centers and custom AI chips, which may add costs not yet fully reflected in the projections.
That uncertainty matters because computing is not a side expense for OpenAI. It is directly tied to the company's ability to train models, operate products, and compete across more categories of AI software.
ChatGPT Remains the Core Business
OpenAI expects ChatGPT to remain its main moneymaker, far ahead of API sales to developers. That places the consumer and workplace product at the center of the company's revenue strategy.
The projections also indicate that ChatGPT prices could double by 2029. If that happens, OpenAI would be asking customers to pay more while the company continues expanding what ChatGPT can do.
New offerings are also part of the plan. Video generation and robotics software may surpass API sales by late 2025, reaching nearly $2 billion in revenue. That suggests OpenAI is not depending only on developer access to its models. It is trying to build products around the models and capture more of the end-user value itself.
The broader implication is that OpenAI may continue trying to cover as many AI applications as possible in-house. The source article describes ChatGPT as becoming the center of much of white-collar work. CEO Sam Altman has warned that AI startups without clear differentiation from OpenAI's products could be "steamrolled" by the company's model progress.
People, Data and Partners Shape the Risk
OpenAI's cost base is not only about servers and model runs. Personnel costs are expected to rise from $700 million in 2024 to $2 billion in 2025. That jump points to a company hiring and operating at a level consistent with its broad product ambitions.
At the same time, OpenAI expects data costs to decline. The source article says this suggests less reliance on external data sources. The company has signed numerous media licensing deals, mostly to integrate current content into its planned SearchGPT product, which will become part of ChatGPT when it is ready.
Microsoft remains an important part of the picture. The projections show heavy reliance on partners like Microsoft, and cloud cost offsets through credits may affect how the financial picture appears. For investors, that means the economics of OpenAI are connected not only to customer demand but also to partner arrangements and infrastructure strategy.
What the Projections Mean for Investors
The internal forecasts show a company pursuing a high-risk, high-scale path. OpenAI is aiming for enormous revenue, but the route involves years of expected losses, heavy infrastructure spending, rising staff costs, and uncertain computing expenses.
The investment case depends on several things working at once:
- ChatGPT must remain the main revenue driver.
- New products such as video generation and robotics software must add meaningful revenue.
- Margins must improve from 41% toward the company's 67% target by 2028.
- Training, research and operating costs must be managed despite very large planned spending.
- Partner support, including Microsoft's role, must continue to fit the company's growth plan.
OpenAI's projections do not describe a simple software company scaling with modest extra cost. They describe an AI company trying to build a broad platform while paying heavily for the models, talent and infrastructure needed to support it. For OpenAI investors, that is the core bet.